Citizens of the West — citizens of the U.S. in particular — use more than our share. You know this. You have probably taken a carbon or ecological footprint quiz. You have probably found that it would require 2 or 3 or 6 Earths to support your lifestyle. Yes, me, too. I am not particularly wasteful, though my friend the No Impact Man feigned horror when I told him I dry my hair. I offered to use a human-powered peddle energy to run my hair dryer. “Why not just stop needing that energy at all?” he asked.

Yes, why not?

While I’m well aware of the need to cut my needs, I’m one of those who hopes that my small lifestyle (small house, small car, small family) will be enough.

It won’t.

I know. I don’t really hope I can continue with my below average number of required Earths, but I do I hope I won’t live to see the crash. I don’t linger too long on that ridiculous hope, but I do linger. Even if I don’t see it with my own eyes, chances are very good my children will see it up close.

But someone will.

So, I have to reduce?

Yes, drastically.

I’ve been following the conversation among those rioting for austerity in the past month. Basic idea: the fair share of U.S. citizens is 94% less than most of us use now, so reduce to our fair share. Go slowly by just reaching for 90% to start.

The Rules of 90% Reduction including 7 areas (quoted from the rules):

1. Gasoline. Average American usage is 500 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR. A 90 percent reduction would be 50 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR.
2. Electricity. Average US usage is 11,000 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR, or about 900 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH. A 90% reduction would mean using 1,100 PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR or 90 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH.
3. Heating and Cooking Energy - this is divided into 3 categories, gas, wood and oil. Your household probably uses one of these, and they are not interchangeable. If you use an electric stove or electric heat, this goes under electric usage.
4. Garbage – the average American generates about 4.5 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean .45 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY.
5. Water. The Average American uses 100 Gallons of water PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean 10 gallons PER PERSON, PER DAY.
6. Consumer Goods. The best metric I could find for this is using money. A Professor at Syracuse University calculates that as an average, every consumer dollar we spend puts .5 lbs of carbon into the atmosphere. This isn’t perfect, of course, but it averages out pretty well.
7. Food. This was by far the hardest thing to come up with a simple metric for. Using food miles, or price gives what I believe is a radically inaccurate way of thinking about this. So here’s the best I can do. Food is divided into 3 categories: 70% local food, 20% dry bulk, and 5% wet goods.

There is oh so much more detail in the rules, and the Yahoo! group includes a spreadsheet set up to track reductions. I’ve been thinking that a chart of 7 thermometers would be a good way to track my sinking usage from my place somewhere below the American average down to my fair share. A compelling scoreboard might encourage my children to participate through their own motivation more than my nudging.

Nearly irrelevant final note: When I typed in the link for the Earth Day footprint calculator above, I typed “Death Day.” I type fast, and I sometimes find it interesting to see what comes out my fingers before my brain engages. This type, I stopped short. Is that how I see it? Somewhere inside, I must see it that way.

In Australia, the Permaforest Trust’s Centre for Sustainability Education teaches not just the ideas but the practice of sustainability on their 100+-acre property.

Too many people I know, particularly academics, are willing to learn and hear more about sustainability, toss out sarcastic comments, and then feign self-rebuke as they admit that the practice is too difficult for them. That is how my local sustainability group has been going lately.

Where is the action? How do I learn from those who are doing what we all seem to agree must be done to come down gently from our carbon high? I look to models like that at the Centre for Sustainability Education.

Permaforest Trust’s founder, Tim Winton, outlined seven steps to take in preparation for the changes to come. Because we can’t entirely prevent the changes we will see in our warmer, post-carbon world, “your approach to sustainability must now include preparations for life in a fundamentally different world.”

1. Integrate systems thinking
2. Increase self reliance
3. Economic disruption
4. Don’t despair
5. No fighting
6. Planetary emergence
7. Tell this story

His suggestions for action are short and clear. Just be sure you ACT rather than simply taking in more information. (And, yes, I’m telling myself as much as anyone.)

Transition Culture is, bar none, the best site I know on life after peak oil. Rob Hopkins is a teacher of permaculture and a developer of a powerdown community in Ireland. He speaks publicly, he teaches courses, he is active in his community — and he blogs it all to encourage us to prepare for powerdown in our own communities. We find out how his town’s Energy Descent Action Plan is going as it goes.

For those who want to know where to begin in creating their own transition town projects, he has compiled 10 First Steps for a Transition Town Initiative, based on the experience in his town of Totnes.

1. Awareness Raising
2. Lay the Foundations
3. The Official Unleashing
4. Form Groups
5. Use Open Space
6. Develop Visible Practical Manifestations of the Project
7. Facilitate the Great Reskilling
8. Build a Bridge to Local Government
9. Honor the Elders
10. Let it Go Where It Wants to Go and Reflections

Every one of these steps and every post on the Transition Culture blog is a rich inspiration in itself. And, yet, it’s all just plain practical if you are concerned about relocalization. These steps are seriously practical. It makes me think of the statement by Hopi Elders.

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know our garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

I’m sure you realize that the food safety system put in place by the U.S. government does not favor you, the person wanting to eat that food, so much as mega agribusiness.

What are you going to do to keep your own food chain more safe? Eat local. Even if you aren’t ready to eat out of your own garden, you can take steps to eat in line with your values. It can be a challenge to eat local, but people around you are making it easier all of the time.

You might start by signing up with a CSA, which is short for Community Supported Agriculture. You can buy a share of the harvest in these local farms. Sign up soon for the upcoming season. Local Harvest offers a comprehensive list of CSAs. Check the list for farmers’ markets and restaurants, too.

Eating local doesn’t guarantee the safety of your food, but it takes you out of the longer chain where safety is more difficult to ensure. Supporting local food helps keep your local economy and community strong.

Living with our landscape rather than against it will be in our favor when we find the need to survive in the future on less than our current carbon-bloated lives allow.

This amazing family home in Wales was dug into a hillside. This is part of a permaculture movement that seems to have taken hold more in Britain than in the U.S. The hobbit yurt house site includes interior images and their simple plans.

Cae Mabon, a retreat center also in Wales, has more beautiful permaculture buildings to dream about.

There are several institutes and schools, but I think these buildings built by the occupants themselves–for ~$120/sq ft–are far more appealing, they fit specific needs, and it would be great to live inside walls that you built yourself.

See also Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture.